What would you do if you were presented with a rack of lamb and a tenderloin, and told you had about a half-hour to create dinner?

If you’re Jennifer Jasinski, and lamb is the secret ingredient in a “celebrity chef cook-off,” you whip up a couple of marinades, one with rosemary and garlic, the other curry and coriander. And if you’re Tyler Wiard, you reach for chipotles, honey and olives.

The two chefs (Wiard is chef at Elway’s Cherry Creek, Jasinski owns Rioja and Bistro Vendôme), cooked for charity Saturday night onstage at the Colorado Women’s Expo in the Colorado Convention Center. They were allowed to preview a pantry of ingredients, but the secret ingredient — two cuts of lamb — was announced just as the contest began.

We judges — Marty Meitus of the Rocky Mountain News, Kazia Jankowski of 5280 and I — had the easy job. We got to watch as the chefs sweated over their hot stoves under equally hot lights, creating four lamb dishes in less than an hour.

Wiard and sous chef Cory Treadway went into the contest with a plan — they knew they wanted to play with Southwestern and Mediterranean flavors.

“I lived in Santa Fe for a while, and I fell in love with the New Mexican style,” says Wiard, whose menu at Elway’s hints at his love of regional flavors.

Jasinksi, who was battling a cold and the clock, took inspiration from the table-full of ingredients provided by Whole Foods (leftovers went to the Denver Rescue Mission). She chose trumpet mushrooms, fennel, arugula and goat cheese for a salad served underneath the rosemary-garlic tenderloin.

She and sous chef Dana Rodriguez collaborated on both dishes, while Wiard and Treadway each concentrated on a single dish. Treadway’s rosemary roasted Colorado lamb loin, sauteed shrimp, goat cheese polenta and saute of kalamata olives and roasted red peppers went up against Jasinki’s salad with her similarly seasoned lamb loin.

We liked both dishes, but for me, the edge went to Treadway for the briny punch of the olives against the creamy polenta.

For the other cut, a lamb rack, the main dishes diverged in flavor, as Jasinski chose Indian flavors of curry and coriander for the lamb and raisin-studded couscous. Wiard’s spicy southwestern glazed rack blazed in contrast to his smooth avocado sauce, all anchored on a fingerling potato-black-bean-bacon “salad.”

Again, we judges struggled to choose one over the other, but Wiard’s depth of flavor edged out Jasinski’s lively curry. Wiard’s $750 prize money, donated by the Denver Newspaper Agency, went to Concerts for Kids and Work Options for Women received $250 in Jasinski’s name.

Wiard (with four other Denver chefs) will take his favorite flavors to New York when he cooks at the James Beard house on May 14. He plans to wow jaded New York palates with green chile-braised short ribs with Navajo fry bread, poached quail egg and smoked red chili sauce.

Does he get nervous at these things? “No, I hate the stress of waiting around, but once I start cooking, it totally relaxes me.”